Book Review: No Way to Treat a First Lady, by Christopher Buckley (2002)

Paperback cover of No Way to Treat a First Lady, by Christopher Buckley, 2002.

Novelist Christopher Buckley

As the political atmosphere seems to get worse and worse by the day, it feels almost quaint to recall the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. Bill and Hillary! Bob Dole! W! Al Gore! Novelist Christopher Buckley does an excellent job conjuring up that era in his 2002 novel No Way to Treat a First Lady. In the novel, First Lady Elizabeth Tyler MacMann wakes up to find a dead president next to her in bed. The evening before, the couple had quarreled over the President’s late-night visit to the Lincoln Bedroom, where he had an assignation with singer and movie star Babette Van Anka. After questioning, the First Lady is arrested for the assassination of her late husband. 

No Way to Treat a First Lady leads us through the “Trial of the Millennium” that inevitably ensues. The First Lady has entrusted one of the most famous defense attorneys in the country, Boyce “Shameless” Baylor to defend her. Awkward backstory: Boyce was engaged to Beth in law school, but she broke it off when she met the future President. Boyce has cycled through four marriages, the latest one lasting all of six months. As Boyce says, “We were blissfully happy the first two months.” (p.40) Boyce’s current flame is Perri Pettengill, who hosts a legal talk show called Hard Gavel. Perri is known for wearing very tight sweaters. She’s become so famous that “Tom Wolfe had mentioned her in an essay, calling her ‘the Lemon Tort.’” (p.14) 

I won’t spoil any more of the plot, but Buckley does an excellent job of winding this improbable case through its many twists and turns. Buckley is especially adept and handling the back and forth of the courtroom scenes. You could make the argument that there’s no one to really root for in the novel, but once Buckley compared Beth to Natalie Wood, she instantly had my sympathy. And in my head, I had cast Alec Baldwin as Boyce Baylor, so I found pretty much anything Baylor said to be quite hilarious. 

There are many humorous lines sprinkled throughout No Way to Treat a First Lady. The press’ nickname for Beth was “Lady Bethmac,” and Buckley gets off a great Macbeth pun by naming a Secret Service agent Woody Birnam. 

My other favorite lines from the book include:

“Hypocrisy is a prerogative of the press but must under no circumstances be tolerated in politicians.” (p.24)

“Sometimes the American Dream, like God, works in mysterious ways.” (p.113)

I also laughed heartily at Boyce’s list of Baby Boomer accomplishments: “Disco, junk bonds, silicone implants, colorized movies, the whole concept of stress as a philosophical justification for self-indulgence.” (p.133) 

Fans of Buckley’s other Washington, D.C. satires should note that John O. Banion, the lead character in Little Green Men, briefly appears, as does Nick Naylor, the unscrupulous lobbyist from Thank You for Smoking. Naylor has taken a job as a publicist for Babette Van Anka, a position that is more and more fraught with danger as the novel progresses. 

Buckley relentlessly skewers the ridiculousness of the press throughout the book. There are also many opportunities for the skewering of the legal profession, and one of my favorite quotes was this one: 

“There are few spectacles more pathetic than a roomful of otherwise responsible people trying to squirm out of a civic duty enshrined in Magna Carta as one of the signal boons of democracy. On the other hand, who in his right mind wants to serve on a jury?” (p.66) 

As someone who has served on a jury, I can identify with that sentiment. 

If you’re looking for an escape from the current political climate, you’ll enjoy No Way to Treat a First Lady.

Book Review: Little Green Men, by Christopher Buckley (1999)

Little Green Men, by Christopher Buckley, 1999.

Christopher Buckley

Christopher Buckley’s 1999 novel Little Green Men does a great job at capturing the millennial craziness America experienced in those closing years of the 20^th century. The main character in Little Green Men is pundit and talk-show host John O. Banion, a typical Beltway insider who has an exaggerated sense of his own self-importance. As the novel opens, Banion has just finished grilling the President on his TV show, and he’s set to moderate the Presidential debates in the fall. 

Seemingly on the opposite end of the Washington spectrum from Banion is Nathan Scrubbs, who works for MJ-12, the top secret government organization that orchestrates all of the alien and UFO sightings in the United States. MJ-12 began during the Cold War: “The idea was simple enough: convince Stalin that UFO’s existed and that the United States was in possession of their technology.” (P.31) Eventually, the mission of MJ-12 expanded, as the leaders in charge realized the organization could prove useful in other ways: “...MJ-12 could serve another, even higher purpose: keeping the taxpaying U.S. citizenry alarmed about the possibility of invasion from outer space, and therefore happy to fund expansion of the military-aerospace complex.” (P.31) In order to keep citizens believing in aliens, MJ-12 oversees alien “abductions,” which are actually carried out by humans, called “baggers,” wearing costumes. MJ-12 has been very successful in its goals, but they deliberately don’t abduct famous people, as they don’t want to attract too much attention. But as Scrubbs drunkenly watches Banion’s talk show one Sunday morning, he impulsively decides to override the computer algorithm and authorizes an abduction of Banion. 

While practicing his golf swing one day at Burning Bush Country Club, Banion finds that his golf balls are strangely veering off into the woods at seemingly impossible angles. When he goes to investigate, he sees the flashing lights of an alien spacecraft. After he’s “abducted,” Banion spins his initial ramblings about seeing aliens as a head injury from a golf cart accident. When Banion doesn’t go public with his experience, Scrubbs orders him abducted again. After his second experience with aliens, Banion goes public in a big way about his experiences. As Banion starts talking about UFOs and aliens, he finds his image as a Washington insider ruined. As Banion’s lecture agent tells him, “You know what these groups want. The Washington insider stuff, what it’s like to have the president for dinner, what Cokie Roberts smells like. And you give them The War of the Worlds.” (P.69) But just as Banion’s wife and Washington friends dump him, the UFO community embraces him, and he meets Roz Well, an attractive editor of a UFO magazine. 

What will happen to John O. Banion? Will he ever command large lecture fees again? Will his new TV show Saturday, which focuses on UFOs and aliens, become as big a hit as his old TV show, Sunday? Will he ever be able to consummate his relationship with Roz? Will he be able to discover the truth about who’s behind all of the alien abductions? Will his “Millennium Man March” on Washington be a success or a resounding failure? For the answers, you’ll have to read this entertaining satire. 

Christopher Buckley is a satirist with deadly aim, and his arrows all hit their targets in Little Green Men. There are wonderful little jokes strewn about throughout the novel, like how Banion’s book about the welfare state is called Screwing the Poor. The sponsor of his TV show Sunday is an electric company called Ample Ampere. As Banion’s TV show Saturday debuts, Buckley writes, “Except for the name, time slot, announcer’s voice, theme music, set, graphics, guests, and sponsor, Banion’s new television show was just like his old one.” (P.139) If you find these jokes funny, you’ll be positively delighted with Little Green Men.